A good life for all within the planet’s means

A study led by the University of Leeds has found that no country currently meets its citizens’ basic needs at a globally sustainable level of resource use.

The research, published in Nature Sustainability, is the first to quantify the sustainability
of national resource use associated with meeting basic human needs for 151
countries.

Each countrys resource use and well-being achievements
have been made available as a website built by the academics involved in
the study.

Lead author, Dr Daniel ONeill, from the Sustainability Research Institute at Leeds, said: Almost everything we do, from having dinner
to surfing the Internet, uses resources in some way, but the connections
between resource use and human well-being are not always visible to us.

We examined international relationships between the
sustainability of resource use and the achievement of social goals, and found
that basic needs, such as nutrition, sanitation, and the elimination of extreme
poverty, could most likely be achieved in all
countries without exceeding global environmental limits.

Radical changes are needed if all people are to live well within the limits of the planet. These include moving beyond the pursuit of economic growth in wealthy nations, shifting rapidly from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and significantly reducing inequality.

Dr Julia Steinberger, School of Earth and Environment

Unfortunately, the same is not true for other social
goals that go beyond basic subsistence such as secondary education and high life
satisfaction. Meeting these goals could require a level of resource use that is
two to six times the sustainable level.

Co-author, Dr Andrew Fanning, also from the Sustainability Research Institute, said: Our results suggest that
some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, such as combating
climate change and its impacts, could be undermined by the pursuit of other goals,
particularly those focused on growth or high levels of human well-being."

This study builds on research by the Stockholm
Resilience Centre that identified nine environmental processes that regulate the
planet and proposed safe planetary boundaries for each that  if persistently
exceeded  could lead to catastrophic change. The planetary boundaries include issues
such as climate change, land-use change, and freshwater use.

The study found that many European and industrialised countries exceed multiple planetary boundaries, such as carbon emissions and nitrogen use.

The researchers distributed seven planetary boundaries
among nations according to their share of global population, and then compared these
boundaries to national resource consumption, after correcting for international
trade.

At the same time, the study scored countries on 11 social
objectives established in previous research on what it would mean for countries
to develop in safe and just way. The
objectives included healthy life expectancy, access to energy, and democratic
quality among others.

The study benchmarked each countrys resource use
against the planetary boundaries, and mapped these alongside the social
indicators. The mapping showed no country performed well on both the planetary
and social thresholds.

The study found that many European and industrialised countries achieve a number of social thresholds, such as education and high life expectancy, but use an unsustainable level of resources.

Co-author Dr
William Lamb, from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and
Climate Change (MCC), said: In general, the more social thresholds a country
achieves, the more planetary boundaries it exceeds, and vice versa.

Although
wealthy nations like the US and UK satisfy the basic needs of their citizens,
they do so at a level of resource use that is far beyond what is globally
sustainable. In contrast, countries that
are using resources at a sustainable level, such as Sri Lanka, fail to meet the
basic needs of their people.

Co-author Dr
Julia Steinberger, from the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, said Radical changes are
needed if all people are to live well within the limits of the planet. These include moving beyond the pursuit of
economic growth in wealthy nations, shifting rapidly from fossil fuels to
renewable energy, and significantly reducing inequality.

Our physical infrastructure and the way we
distribute resources are both part of what we call provisioning systems. If all people are to lead a good life within
the planets limits then these provisioning systems need to be fundamentally
restructured to allow for basic needs to be met at a much lower level of
resource use.